Alternatives to heavy armor for clerics?

[Fanaelialae]

Wow, No. What a really bad idea. You need to go ponder the meaning of "slight boost".....

Unless you WANT everyone to MC dip into a cleric domain that grants this & thus making the min. AC in your game = AC.14, all the time? And have healing spells to boot?

It's not much different from dipping cleric for heavy armor proficiency.

 

[cbwjm]

It's not much different from dipping cleric for heavy armor proficiency.

Except that heavy armour penalizes your stealth rolls and lowers your movement speed if you don't have enough strength. If people are using encumbrance then that suit of armour would also limit their carry capacity. Still, I'm not sure it would matter too much, if it did then I'd expect to see more people picking up dragon sorcerer, barbarian, or monk for their armour bonuses.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't mean, what can you come up with that provides the same benefits as heavy armor without actually being heavy armor. I'm looking for substitutes that are good enough to compensate for the lack of heavy armor, but are more thematically related to the domains.

Heavy Armor is really a pretty minor benefit, it means you can dump DEX and throw a 14 in STR and be OK with a melee weapon & OK with a thrown one, vs tossing a 14 to DEX in medium armor for AC and using ranged & finesse weapons, when weapon-use is probably tertiary after spells and cantrips.

 

[Ancalagon]

Except that heavy armour penalizes your stealth rolls and lowers your movement speed if you don't have enough strength. If people are using encumbrance then that suit of armour would also limit their carry capacity. Still, I'm not sure it would matter too much, if it did then I'd expect to see more people picking up dragon sorcerer, barbarian, or monk for their armour bonuses.

A cleric dip also has roleplaying consequences. If you are a high level wizard with a few levels of fighter... good for you, you're a wizard that knows how to fight, that's it, no more to it. A few level of cleric is a whole different kettle of fish - it implies beliefs, ethos, religious duties etc etc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Are we trying to fix an issue that will never, ever crop up in a game here?

Has anyone ever, anywhere seen someone choose to play a Nature Cleric rather than a druid? I would assume that in the extremely unlikely event that they did, it was because their concept was a druid who for some weird reason wears heavy armour.

 

[5ekyu]

A cleric dip also has roleplaying consequences. If you are a high level wizard with a few levels of fighter... good for you, you're a wizard that knows how to fight, that's it, no more to it. A few level of cleric is a whole different kettle of fish - it implies beliefs, ethos, religious duties etc etc.

But "roleplaying consequences" are not going to be consistent in the way that mechanical changes are.

What is at the core of this discussion is an issue about mechanical changes in class features, so how one table chooses to saddle the cleeic with "role playing consequences" but choose to see "fighter" or "warlock" or "rogue" or whatever as "consequence free" or "consequence light" is not a factor that provides progress.

Maybe, in my games, to keep his extra ASI, a fighter has to keep spending in game playtime "working out" losing as much "playtime" for it as the cleric loses for his "chanting and stuff". Maybe in my games, "being a fighter" carries as much or more "roleplaying consequence" because of restrictions on training and use of martial weapons within the setting.

In my experience, across many systems which have mixed the two, role playing restrictions on mechanical balance issues do not usually lead to good and consistent solutions.

The tighter and heavier a system chains roleplay to mechanics the more both suffer in my experience.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Except that heavy armour penalizes your stealth rolls and lowers your movement speed if you don't have enough strength. If people are using encumbrance then that suit of armour would also limit their carry capacity. Still, I'm not sure it would matter too much, if it did then I'd expect to see more people picking up dragon sorcerer, barbarian, or monk for their armour bonuses.

It's negligible in many cases. Ring mail (AC 14) has no Strength requirement. While it carries the Stealth penalty, a character who dumped Dex (which is who it ought to appeal to most) isn't likely to be relying much on stealth to begin with. As for carrying capacity, it only matters if you track encumbrance (some groups don't) and then only until you get a bag of holding or similar item. Most casters (the characters this would most appeal to) don't need much in the way of equipment to begin with.

Then there's everything you give up to gain such an ability. As I said, this would primarily appeal to arcane casters (since most other classes can get as good or better AC). Being a level behind in obtaining higher level spells is a painful choice (at least, it was for me when I played my cleric/wizard, although I went knowledge domain and took the heavy armor feat). I made the choice primarily for RP reasons, but I was constantly thinking about the spells I could have been casting if I hadn't dipped cleric. That's somewhere around 2 sessions where you could be casting polymorph (for example) if you hadn't opted for a better AC. For something that, if you play smart and stay behind the front line, won't come up all that often (although when it does, you may be glad you did).

Then there are the RP considerations. For a devout character, it might make sense. For more... scheisty... character concepts it typically won't (the trickster domain might make sense for such characters, but it doesn't grant heavy armor).

Which is why I consider it a minor boost that certainly not all players would opt into. It's already an option, and most players ignore it. While this change removes some of the drawbacks, those are fairly minor in many cases to begin with.

Now, I'm not saying that every DM should allow this. Simply that if you don't like the idea of heavily armored clerics, then this is a simple way to implement that change.

Edit:
You should take your players into consideration before making such a change. If you have players who make leveling decisions based on system mastery, then it's possible that this solution isn't well suited to your group. If you have old school players who envision their character as the iconic, heavily armored cleric then this probably isn't a good solution for you. On the other hand, if your players are primarily motivated by RP choices, I can't imagine you'd have anything to worry about even if you decide on the most powerful option (just granting AC 18 from the get go).

 

[Ancalagon]

Has anyone ever, anywhere seen someone choose to play a Nature Cleric rather than a druid?

That's a damn good question

 

[jaelis]

If you really want a simple, general purpose idea, I’d suggest letting any character with heavy armor proficiency trade it out for an extra skill. That makes some semse in game (you spent your time learning something else).

It benefits Dex builds some. If you feel thst Dex builds are already overpowered, then you probably wouldn’t like it. But in that case you probably shouldn’t give anything in exchange for heavy armor since you probably see it as a trap option anyway.

 

[Rossbert]

It feels unnecessary. As others have mentioned it is more of a cleric feature they took away from some subclasses (mostly in exchange for even better casting) without the weird wording of "loses heavy armor proficiency."

The other part being it sets a dangerous precedent. What if Dex fighters or archery rangers want to trade in their profciencies, or a wizard doesn't like this particular level's school feature.

There is a degree of gratuitous and sometimes unwanted features built in to certain options, sometimes to add unlikely options, (dwarf stat bonuses are matches better suited for classes that already have medium armor comes to mind) and sometimes just to force choices (do I really want that high Dex when I could just put on the heavier armor?)